1. Kevin Williamson came up with the idea to create a show based on himself and his friends growing up after producer Paul Stupin read his Scream script and asked him if he had any ideas for TV shows.

2. Williamson pitchedDawson’s Creek as "Some Kind of Wonderful, meets Pump Up the Volume, meets James at 15, meets My So-Called Life, meets Little House on the Prairie".

3. Williamson says Dawson basically was him as a teen. He spent his time making his own movies and idolising Steven Spielberg. Dawson’s Creek, meanwhile, was a real place where Williamson would hang out with his friends.

4. Pacey was based on one of Willamson’s real friends, who was also named Pacey.

5. Joey, meanwhile, was based on Williamson’s best friend Fanny. She would sail to his house because it was closer by water than by road, and sleep in his room at night just like Joey does with Dawson.

6. Williamson gave Joey a boy’s name not only because she was a tomboy, but also as a private shout-out to his sexuality – he never thought he’d actually get to write a gay storyline (although he did later with Jack in Season 2).

7. In the first two seasons in particular, Williamson says all of the major plot points were taken directly from his life or from that of other writers. Williamson admits his family sometimes got uncomfortable with how closely the storylines resembled their real lives.

8. Selma Blair was in the running for the role of Joey, but Katie Holmes won the creators over with an audition tape she’d filmed at home, with her mother playing Dawson.

9. Holmes initially refused to fly out to LA to meet with the creators because she was committed to starring in her high school’s play and she didn’t want to let her friends down. So the creators waited two weeks for her to be finished with the school play.

10. Joshua Jackson was up for the roles of both Dawson and Pacey before the creators decided he was a better fit for Pacey.

15. Kevin Williamson and Paul Stupin shot the candid footage used in the main title sequence. The actors were told it was for a presentation and would never make it to air.

16. James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson lived together during filming of the first season, and Katie Holmes and Jackson dated, with Holmes describing him as “first love”.

17. Dawson’s Season 1 hair was inspired by Brad Pitt in The Devil’s Own.

18. The show creators had to get Steven Spielberg’s permission to use posters and short clips from his movies in the show. He watched the pilot and gave his approval, but requested that they take out a line where Dawson describes Jen as reminding him of Spielberg’s wife Kate Capshaw.

19. Jen’s grandfather was originally meant to wake up and be OK in Season 1, but the writer’s couldn’t find a way to include him in the story, so they ended up killing him off.

30. John Wesley Shipp, who played Mitch Leery, wanted to leave the show because he didn’t believe the adult characters were getting enough interesting storylines, so he agreed to be killed off. Tom Kapinos says he regrets the way Mitch was killed off, describing it as an “utter disaster”.

31. The science project episode in Season 1 was what originally gave the writers the idea to get Joey and Pacey together, but they delayed the plot because they wanted to be careful not to sacrifice the characters’ likability.

32. Greg Berlanti pitched the Joey and Pacey plotline in Season 3 because it was what he wanted to see “as a fanboy”.

33. According to writer Dana Baratta, James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson weren’t getting along while filming Season 3, so the writers avoided putting them in scenes together – which helped fuel the Pacey vs Dawson storyline.

35. Michelle Williams felt insecure about how little time she got on-screen compared to the main love triangle of Pacey, Dawson, and Joey, but James Van Der Beek told her it was a good thing because she’d be able to distance herself from the show more easily in future.

36. James Van Der Beek once ran into Steven Spielberg at a basketball game, and Spielberg told him, “I like the posters on your wall”.

38. James Van Der Beek bought champagne for the whole crew when Dawson finally lost his virginity.

39. Each year of filming, Joshua Jackson would take the cast and crew to see a hockey game. One year, he was arrested after getting in a fight with a security guard.

40. Busy Philipps, who played Audrey, was originally meant to do a guest spot on the show but the showrunner at the time, Tom Kapinos, liked her so much he decided to wait to use her as a recurring character when the gang went to college.

41. Originally, the series finale was very different: Dawson and Pacey reconcile their friendship but Joey leaves them both behind and heads to Paris, while a very much alive Jen moves back to New York. The storyline was instead used in Episode 22 in the final season.

42. The studio ended up asking Kevin Williamson to return to write the finale, and he agreed when they suggested it be set five years later, giving him space to tell new stories with the characters.

44. Michelle Williams questioned the decision to kill off Jen, saying “Well, what if we do a reunion show? What if we do a movie or something?”, to which Williamson replied, “Well, then you’ll be a ghost.”

45. Joey was originally going to pick Dawson over Pacey in the finale, but after writing it, Kevin Williamson admits something felt off, and he realised that while Joey and Dawson were soulmates, their love was platonic, and Pacey was Joey’s true romantic match.